Dear İlhan Ağabey (YDO, Mk. 1953) continues to share his memories with us. Despite his advanced age, he shares great memories with us with his clear memory.
I'm sure you have many similar memories, and we shouldn't forget that when you share them, they will be a great resource for our maritime history. I want all of our friends working on the ship to know that the notes he keeps for every ship he works on will take us to very good memories in the future.
If you do not record it, you will realize that you have forgotten even the names of your friends with whom you work with a lot of experiences in the future. Although, working on a ship is a great sacrifice in itself, but you can be sure that we will all see the benefits of taking note of the heavy seas and events that are forgotten when we arrive at the port. Every event is a lesson and should be passed on to future generations. You can make perfect roads, perfect cars, perfect houses, but you cannot perfect the sea.
It is built in 1950 at Fredrikstad A/S Shipyard in Norway. It is a ship with a capacity of 5130 DWT. It is manufactured as an improved 4-cylinder steam engine. It is 113.4 meters long, 15.89 meters wide and 6.10 meters deep. The original owners are Norwegian shipowners Welhem and Co.A/S Bergen. The ship has another sibling. Its name is Seyhan. On 12 December 1954, they joined the DB Deniz Nakliyat TAŞ fleet in Halifax.
The interior of the ship, which is not very flashy on the outside, is wonderful. Everywhere is covered with knotless crimson pine trees. The wooden part of the tables, armchairs, chairs and comfortable sofas is also pine or oak, and the fabric upholstery is the famous lovely Norwegian hand-woven.
The two sisters are chartered to the Americans on a "time charter" between 1950 and 1954, giving a regular voyage between South America and the US North Atlantic ports. Afterwards, the ships that served the D.B. Marine Transport for many years were scrapped in 1979.
After that, let's come to the memory of İlhan Özerdim Ağabey:
SEALING RING
S/S Seyhan and S/S Kütahya, two Norwegian ships. D.B. Deniz Nakliyat T AS's two lousy ships; Kütahya is the worst. In fact, they are quite robust and marine (resistant to heavy seas) ships in terms of hulls. However, it is very difficult to find engine personnel for these ships, since their machines (double compound steam engine = two double cylinder steam engines) especially steam boilers (two, 27 tons water capacity with flame tube) cause many malfunctions. Because running these ships makes the mothers of the Machine personnel cry, and when they complete the voyage, the Machine personnel become exhausted, weary; And at the first opportunity, he is looking for ways to leave the ship, to escape.
Personnel Inspector Halit Abi (Halit Gürdeniz) caught my attention that he was in a very troubled situation; "What's wrong bro?" I asked.
“Ask İlhan, 2nd Eng. to Kütahya. I can not find."
With the desire to comfort someone who is in such a difficult situation;
"Love bro, I'm in!!" I said.
Halit brother, who had left Seyhan a short time ago and did not even think of suggesting to send me to the Kütahya ship, said, "You can't be serious" with an incredulous face, thinking I'm joking, kidding.
“Give me my appointment order, I'm going there.”
When he realized that I was really serious, he was so relieved that it was as if the world had been his.
It must have been a youthful impulse, I think that the enthusiasm to have adventure and to have the courage to struggle with difficulties made me decide to work on the worst ship. A few months ago, I was aware of the difficulties of running these ships due to the Denmark expedition we made with the Seyhan ship.
I joined the ship on October 3, 1958. There was a very old but well-intentioned Chief Çarkçıbaşı, who was also known as "Abi Halit" as a Engine Officer, and a well-mannered 3rd Çarkçı, and a retired NCO 4th Çarkçı. Thus, we set out for another Danish expedition.
I do not intend to tell you about the little malfunctions that occur every day. Here I will tell the story of the repairs made in difficult conditions that kept the ship off the road and put it idle.
The first major fault showed itself off Malta; The stern machine's low pressure (AB) cylinder's piston rod began to leak and soon increased to such an extent that it could not continue cruising. We stopped the machine. In order not to keep the ship idle for a long time, we could not wait for the strait and the environment to cool; We immediately got to work. We made a wooden scaffolding under the AB cylinder. The 3rd wheelman and I wore our swimsuits. We went under the roller to the top of the pier. We prepared two water hoses. We have ensured that cold water is constantly sprayed into the throat and us, that is, the environment. We started working under the water, smacking like we were taking a shower. At that moment the air was calm; If the weather deteriorated, we would not be able to work on the pier due to the shaking, and the idle ship could be dragged into dangerous waters. So we had to act quickly.
Taking care not to burn, we unscrewed the throttle nuts and took the throttle down onto the pier. We separated the two-piece ring casing and arrived at 5 or 4 pairs (I don't remember exactly) rings. It was understood that the inner diameters of the rings increased due to wear, resulting in the loss of steam. We made the rings kiss the piston rod by reducing the inner diameter of the ring by grinding the jaws of the ring parts, each of which consists of 6 parts.
We mounted the Throttle in place. We started our machine and set off. It was a great luck that the weather did not spoil during the study period.
While sailing towards the Algerian offshore, the starboard boiler pipes began to leak. We deactivated the boiler and were half way with a single boiler. We left the boiler to cool. When it became possible to enter the hell of the cauldron, I and the 3rd Wheelman, one after another, entered the Hell and started to hit the pipes that leaked machineto. Since it was hellish heat in hell, we had to throw ourselves out after hitting 2 or 3 pipes with machineto.
With only one boiler and half way, half a day before the Strait of Gibraltar, the flange gasket that connects the supply water pipe of the Pier boiler to the boiler began to leak. We immediately stopped the machines. We turned off the boiler. After the steam pressure dropped, we drained the water from the boiler and removed the feed water pipe flange. The gasket surface of the boiler was so bad that it was obvious that it was impossible to cut the leak by just replacing the gasket. While looking for a cure, we found manganese paste on the ship. We smeared it on the gasket surface of the boiler and glued the gasket on it and connected the pipe. We took the water to the boiler; no evasion. We fired up the boiler, held pressure; No abduction. Here, too, luck was on our side. Moreover, the sea was calm during the study. We turned on our boiler and set off.
While we were dealing with these works in the boiler room, interesting developments were taking place outside. Since we were close to the Strait of Gibraltar, ships were passing by very close to us and they were seeing our idle state. The three ships passing by made a suggestion to the captain to tow us.
The captain asked me if we should withdraw. I turned down all three proposals, saying that we'll be done in a short while and we'll be on our way. As it is known, towing is a very advantageous action, but half the value of the ship is lost.
After a while, the starboard boiler machine-to-work was completed. The leaks in the pipes were fixed. We set fire to the boiler, kept the pressure and put it into operation. We gave our machines the full path.
We continued our course at full speed without any major problems until the Usant lighthouse. Right around here, we stopped the blower machine when we heard a strong bearing knock from the bellows machine, which blew air into the boilers and had no backup. By opening the air flaps under the furnaces, we started to continue with natural ventilation. However, in this case, we had to reduce the combustion due to insufficient air. Naturally, the steam pressure and the ship's path also dropped.
Although there was little burning in the boilers, black smoke was coming out of the chimney. It is impossible for us to watch for a long time in this way; because I knew that soon after the boiler pipes would fill with soot, we would be unable to hold any pressure at all.
For this reason, we had to repair and commission the bellows machine, whose crank bearing deteriorated, as soon as possible. We got to work right away. We wanted to repair the crankcase with melted metal by pouring new metal into it; however, there was no bearing metal on board. I thought about making a felt bed. How did this idea land in my head; I don't remember at all; I've either read it somewhere or it was mentioned in an interview, I guess. I started looking for felt. He wasn't there either, and I thought of the engineer's fedora hat. I asked permission to cut it and use it. He immediately accepted my suggestion and handed me the hat. He was even ready to give not one but 10 hats to fix the fault. I cut the hat, cut the felt, instead of the metal, I fixed the bed in place. I started the machine. But soon the felt burned out. I disassembled the bed again. This time, with more care, I opened more smooth oil channels to ensure good lubrication of the seal and adjusted the bearing clearances better;
In summary, in order for the felt to work for a long time without burning, I used all my dexterity and laid the felt inside the bearing caps in the most appropriate condition. This time it did. We were able to run our blower machine even though it wasn't the full path. With more combustion, we were able to increase the pressure of the boilers and the ship started to move faster.
Naturally, we could not turn the expedition in this way. I suggested to the captain that we enter the nearest port and repair the blower with external means. On our way to the nearest port of Le Havre, after a one-and-a-half day cruise, we threw the hatch away.
The outside repair team dismantled the crankcase. The bed was so shiny and it looked very nice. Even the repairers were hesitant to dismantle the sleek-looking felt bearing. The team boss also curiously examined the felt mattress and found it very wonderful. He sincerely congratulated me.
And he suggested, “Come, let's work together at my workplace”.
I thanked his suggestion, said I was honored. But I did not leave my ship!!